Conquering China: how to bring the application to the Chinese market
The Israeli mobile attribution company AppsFlyer published a 60-page guide to entering the Chinese mobile apps market in 2017. Here is the most interesting of it:
How to properly launch your application or game in the Chinese market?
1. Without a local representative you will not work. In Chinese business, everything is decided by 關係 (guanxi), that is, personal connections. You need someone who will represent your interests in China. This can be either a local “stalker” or a whole agency that deals with placing applications in Chinese stores and provides support (for example, AppInChina or AppsToChina), or a media buying company (Zhiyunzhong, Yunrui, Chance, Domob and Bluefocus). Especially for game developers there are services that adapt the gameplay of the game to the local culture in exchange for a share of the profits. The largest of them are Yodo1 and iDreamsky. You can also contact directly the provider who owns the trading platform: Tencent, Bytedance, Baidu.
2. Because of indiscriminate piracy, Chinese government agencies require the mandatory registration of gaming applications. The fact of registration confirms the presence of an individual registration number, without which no application store will accept the game. The registration procedure is as follows:
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Fortunately, for applications that are not games, these steps are not necessary. Also, the procedure is not yet mandatory for iOS-games (Apple agreed with the Chinese government). However, the authors of the report recommend that iOS developers go through it just in case, because it is unknown how much longer this attraction of unprecedented generosity will work.
3. When adapting an application, it is important to choose a written system: simplified writing is used in mainland China and Singapore, and traditional in Hong Kong and Taiwan. If the application has voice commands and audio, you should also think about the colloquial dialect that will be used for re-sounding. Experts advise using Mandarin Chinese, as it is spoken in both China and Taiwan. It is important to translate everything, including error messages and notifications, otherwise the application can be removed from the store: the Chinese are very jealous of their language, and there is a special law that prohibits the use of foreign language descriptions in programs.
4. It is important to remember that the hieroglyphs take up 30% less space than English text, so the interface elements in the application version for the Chinese market may have to be reduced. In addition, a simple translation of commands can play a cruel joke: for example, due to language features, the inscription on the “buy” button will not be read by the Chinese user as a call to action. But the offer to “share with friends” will be perceived with a bang.
The authors of the report also mention that Chinese users like bright, saturated colors in the interfaces, and black, brown and gray, on the contrary, should be used to a minimum.
Instead of links to Facebook and Twitter (they do not work in China), integration with local social networks WeChat and Sina Weibo should be added.
5. Paid applications, like the subscription system, are not widely distributed in China. Most mobile applications are distributed through the freemium system , when the purchase of additional functions occurs within the program, which itself is offered for free. Common payment options: WeChat Pay in the first place, AliPaba payment system AliPay on the second, and plastic cards on the third. An application developer can integrate any combination of these payment methods into their product. And game developers should integrate SDK payments for a single store. Such an SDK typically includes all three payment methods.
6. Similarly, the situation with advertising SDK: some stores require the use of their own SDK, which include leading Chinese advertising networks. It is important to choose the right ones to increase inorganic coverage. Therefore, when choosing a store, it is important to check that the provider integrates at least 40 local ad networks, which together cover 80% of iOS traffic in China and provide the necessary tracking for Android. Here are some of these media platforms: Tencent Social Ads, WeChat, Tencent Tui Ads. Also Toutiao (News Master), Baidu Baitong, Baidu Baiyi, Xiaomi, 360 Dianjing, Momo, Kuaishou, Ipinyou, Domob, Limei and Youmi. The authors of the report report that they can help with contacts of representatives of these networks, because AppsFlyer has been present in the Chinese market for several years now, and all the necessary guanxi are established.
7. When entering the PRC market, the problem lies not only in the “Great Chinese Firewall”. It is a densely populated and a country with a large length, in which the infrastructure is rather poorly developed; however, most of the popular hosting servers are located across the ocean. All this affects the speed of loading the application site. You can remedy the situation using the local content delivery network (CDN). Then the site code will be loaded from the local server. The authors of the report remind that when CDN is activated, traffic data in the advertising cabinet will be divided into two sources: interface code and application code (because the first ones are cached by the browser, and the second ones are not). Popular CDN services in China: CloudFront, EdgeCast, Akamai.
Full version of the report
- The main difference of the Chinese market of mobile applications is that in 2010 Google left the country, and Google Play disappeared along with it. As a result, in China there are over 300 app stores for Android, for each of which you need to repack APK. Shops are divided into two groups: created by operators (eg Tencent, Baidu, 360) and created by manufacturers of smartphones (eg Huawei, Xiaomi).
- Why bother with entering the market of the Middle Kingdom? The Internet in China is used by 751 million people, almost the entire population of Europe. With mobile devices, 724 million users go online, which is 96.3% of all Internet users in the country.
- As a result, every third smartphone owner uses it as a wallet, i.e. pays with the help of phone purchases in shops, taxis, movie tickets and more. On average, 55 mobile transactions per month per WeChat client.
- The cost of mobile advertising between the first quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 increased by 90% (!) - this is an absolute world record. By 2020, it is predicted that by 2020 the volume of costs for mobile ads will be 70 and a half billion dollars.
How to properly launch your application or game in the Chinese market?
1. Without a local representative you will not work. In Chinese business, everything is decided by 關係 (guanxi), that is, personal connections. You need someone who will represent your interests in China. This can be either a local “stalker” or a whole agency that deals with placing applications in Chinese stores and provides support (for example, AppInChina or AppsToChina), or a media buying company (Zhiyunzhong, Yunrui, Chance, Domob and Bluefocus). Especially for game developers there are services that adapt the gameplay of the game to the local culture in exchange for a share of the profits. The largest of them are Yodo1 and iDreamsky. You can also contact directly the provider who owns the trading platform: Tencent, Bytedance, Baidu.
2. Because of indiscriminate piracy, Chinese government agencies require the mandatory registration of gaming applications. The fact of registration confirms the presence of an individual registration number, without which no application store will accept the game. The registration procedure is as follows:
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- The developer registers a legal entity.
- Fills the necessary documents.
- Loads the game on the smartphone and gives the device to the local regulatory authority.
- Officials will check the application for propaganda, the absence of pornography and calls for illegal actions, and, if all is well, assign a registration number to it. The process takes up to three months.
- Now you can transfer the registration number and game file for moderation in the app store.
Fortunately, for applications that are not games, these steps are not necessary. Also, the procedure is not yet mandatory for iOS-games (Apple agreed with the Chinese government). However, the authors of the report recommend that iOS developers go through it just in case, because it is unknown how much longer this attraction of unprecedented generosity will work.
3. When adapting an application, it is important to choose a written system: simplified writing is used in mainland China and Singapore, and traditional in Hong Kong and Taiwan. If the application has voice commands and audio, you should also think about the colloquial dialect that will be used for re-sounding. Experts advise using Mandarin Chinese, as it is spoken in both China and Taiwan. It is important to translate everything, including error messages and notifications, otherwise the application can be removed from the store: the Chinese are very jealous of their language, and there is a special law that prohibits the use of foreign language descriptions in programs.
4. It is important to remember that the hieroglyphs take up 30% less space than English text, so the interface elements in the application version for the Chinese market may have to be reduced. In addition, a simple translation of commands can play a cruel joke: for example, due to language features, the inscription on the “buy” button will not be read by the Chinese user as a call to action. But the offer to “share with friends” will be perceived with a bang.
The authors of the report also mention that Chinese users like bright, saturated colors in the interfaces, and black, brown and gray, on the contrary, should be used to a minimum.
Instead of links to Facebook and Twitter (they do not work in China), integration with local social networks WeChat and Sina Weibo should be added.
5. Paid applications, like the subscription system, are not widely distributed in China. Most mobile applications are distributed through the freemium system , when the purchase of additional functions occurs within the program, which itself is offered for free. Common payment options: WeChat Pay in the first place, AliPaba payment system AliPay on the second, and plastic cards on the third. An application developer can integrate any combination of these payment methods into their product. And game developers should integrate SDK payments for a single store. Such an SDK typically includes all three payment methods.
6. Similarly, the situation with advertising SDK: some stores require the use of their own SDK, which include leading Chinese advertising networks. It is important to choose the right ones to increase inorganic coverage. Therefore, when choosing a store, it is important to check that the provider integrates at least 40 local ad networks, which together cover 80% of iOS traffic in China and provide the necessary tracking for Android. Here are some of these media platforms: Tencent Social Ads, WeChat, Tencent Tui Ads. Also Toutiao (News Master), Baidu Baitong, Baidu Baiyi, Xiaomi, 360 Dianjing, Momo, Kuaishou, Ipinyou, Domob, Limei and Youmi. The authors of the report report that they can help with contacts of representatives of these networks, because AppsFlyer has been present in the Chinese market for several years now, and all the necessary guanxi are established.
7. When entering the PRC market, the problem lies not only in the “Great Chinese Firewall”. It is a densely populated and a country with a large length, in which the infrastructure is rather poorly developed; however, most of the popular hosting servers are located across the ocean. All this affects the speed of loading the application site. You can remedy the situation using the local content delivery network (CDN). Then the site code will be loaded from the local server. The authors of the report remind that when CDN is activated, traffic data in the advertising cabinet will be divided into two sources: interface code and application code (because the first ones are cached by the browser, and the second ones are not). Popular CDN services in China: CloudFront, EdgeCast, Akamai.
Full version of the report
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/336064/
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